Assisted Living and Memory Care | Sales and Marketing Assessment
The Fannon Group was asked to analyze the sales and marketing performance of a census challenged community part of a small regional management company.
The assessment process included the following:
Metrics Analysis
Review of Collateral Materials and Digital Assets
Identification of Competitive Advantages
Secret Shop
Metrics Analysis - Highlights
Net census growth for the previous 90-days, as measured by Move In/Move Out Differential was zero (0) with 14 MI and 14 MO
Average Move-ins per week had increased in the assessed time from (from .8 per week to 1 MI per week)
Move to Inquiry Conversion Ratio rate was up slightly from 6.2% to 7.7%
Move-In to Tour Conversion Ratio increased significantly from 24.2% to 50.0%
Average leads per week were unchanged for the last 12 months!
Average tours per week fell -39%
The average tour to lead conversion rate also fell dramatically
Metrics Analysis – Conclusions & Recommendations
There is an opportunity to improve the team’s performance with business development and lead generation. A deep dive into the community’s historical lead source data revealed that the community had only received one referral from a professional lead source in the last six (6) months.
Team does a fairly effective job of engaging families from the point that they tour, and the Secret Shop experience reinforces that conclusion. One strength of the sales team was their ability to explain very well the community’s features, benefits, and competitive advantages during the tour.
However, conversion rates were still below industry averages, and this is due to a miss by the sales team. The failed to conduct a discovery beyond the initial question; “Tell me what’s going with your aunt that prompted you to call?” This is a terrific way to start an engagement with the prospect but the failure to ask additional questions that resulted in missing the opportunity to get an in-depth understanding of the prospect’s and family’s needs.
The sales team asked for permission to share a virtual tour; however, they did not take advantage of the shopper’s high degree of expressed interest and invited them to schedule an on-site tour. This is a major miss and explains the decline in tours per week and the Tour to Lead Conversion Rate.
Secret Shop – Assessment
During the Secret Shop the Fannon Group assesses skills in four areas of prospect engagement; Introduction/Engagement Start; Discovery, Education about Services and Gaining Commitment. The shopper was engaged over the phone and the experience yielded the following conclusions in addition to the ones identified above.
Calling the cell phone of the sales team members resulted in having to leave a voice mail. The outgoing message from the sales team set the expectation that they would call back within 24 hours. The Fannon Group recommends a message that sets a more aggressive expectation, such as returning a prospect’s call within 60 minutes, if not received after hours.
Introduction/Start of Prospect Engagement: When the sales team did contact the shopper the following morning the sales team introduced themselves saying they “had received my message about my Aunt Mary and they were calling to see how they could help my family.” This is exactly the approach the Fannon Group teaches in its training programs on engaging senior living prospects. They did not explain the process which we encourage senior living sales professionals to do.
Discovery: Weak/Poor with the sales team asking only one question.
Education of Products/Services: The sales team presented a basic overview of assisted living, apartments and several other features, a few benefits and one competitive advantage. However, the competitive advantage provided did not meet a specific need of the prospect, nor was its importance explained. Other features like PT/OT, in-house MDs and med techs were presented but not tied to specific needs nor were any benefits of these features provided.
Gaining Commitment: At this stage of the engagement with the prospect the highest possible commitment to attain would be to schedule a tour. The sales team did not ask to schedule a tour, offering a virtual tour instead, which was executed immediately.
Secret Shop – Conclusions & Recommendations
In the general this sales team demonstrated strong potential to be a high performing senior living sales professional, despite obvious misses during the secret shop. They would benefit from training on a formal reproducible Prospect Engagement Skills and a period of in-person coaching to maximize their adoption of the skills and maximize performance.
Collateral Materials & Digital Assets
Collateral materials were well designed and provided the prospect with easy-to-understand descriptions of the community’s features. However, the only competitive advantages described in the brochures were the community’s on-campus outpatient rehabilitation clinic and its memory care neighborhood that was under construction. One major miss of the experience was that the collateral materials were sent via email with each page attached as separate documents, vs., one pdf file.
Websites were well designed and communicated the community’s features well. The on-line chatbot feature worked exceedingly well and the shopper received a call back from the community’s 800# within moments after completing the chatbot communication. The receptionist provided the sales team member’s direct line where the shopper was able to leave a voicemail. Unfortunately, the positive experience ended when the shopper did not receive a call back until nearly 8 hours later (after hours). The shopper did not actually speak to the sales team until 24 hours after making initial contact.
The website highlighted, above the fold, that the community received recognition as a Certified Best Place to Work, prominently displaying consumer 5-star ratings and testimonials and provides an overview of services. Gallery photos were a mix of professional and, obviously, amateur photos that reduce their persuasive impact. Finally, there are very few photos of residents experiencing the community’s activities. The community received US News & World Report awards for best Assisted Living and Memory Care and a ‘Best of Award’ from Assisted Living Magazine, but these are not highlighted prominently, appearing only in the website’s footer, using small award badges that are difficult to read.
Facebook and LinkedIn are the only social media platforms utilized by the community. Facebook is utilized very effectively to demonstrate the lifestyle residents can expect by living there with the up-to-date posts, while also highlighting certain competitive advantages. LinkedIn page was poorly designed and needs considerable work.
Collaterals & Digital Assets – Conclusions & Recommendations
In the general the community’s collaterals and digital assets represent the community well. The following recommendations would improve the persuasive impact of the community’s marketing assets.
The community should rebrand and begin posting regularly on its LinkedIn page to maximize the ability to recruit and to present a professional look to the typical users of LinkedIn. They should post the ‘Best Of’ award badges prominently on their LinkedIn and Facebook pages.
Testimonials are a powerfully persuasive marketing tool. The community should consider creating highly visible and compelling stories to present on their website and social media assets.
Create a more compelling photo gallery with professionally taken photos.
Competitive Advantages
The community has excellent competitive advantages that it can use to position itself as a high-quality provider of assisted living and memory care services including:
Experience/Longevity of Team – The department head team has an average of 9.5 years of serving residents at this community.
On-Campus Outpatient Rehab Clinic – A state of the art outpatient rehab clinic is available for residents, with the latest technology and all three disciplines available PT, OT and Speech Therapy.
High Acuity Program – Specialized aging-in-place program designed to meet the advanced needs of resident. Includes low 4 to 1 resident to staff ratio, Hoyer lifts, activity programming space and dining room.
Zero Deficiency Survey – Last 2 state surveys were deficiency free!
US News & World Report Best ALF/MC – Check out this video to learn how to use these awards in your marketing: https://vimeo.com/1038179473
Competitive Advantages - Conclusions & Recommendations
Create Competitive Advantage messages that the sales team can use in its engagement with families and its business development with referral sources and digital and traditional marketing strategies.